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Gee4orce · Sep 4, 2003, 06:29 AM

Mozilla Thunderbird.

Customise Toolbar Image

..OK, so it's actually availabe for Mac OS X, but Thunderbird is ripping off Mac OS X style toolbars and making then available on Linux and Windows. This is another GUI innovation that's been RnD'd by Apple, and swiftly knicked by the Open Source crowd.

Is this kind of thing copyrightable ? I feel that it should be, as it's part of the Mac OS X APIs and look and feel.

ntsc · Sep 4, 2003, 07:28 AM

There's nothing wrong with a little bit of generalised copying (highest form of flattery don't you know!) but thats just out of the question. It is an exact copy of Mac OS X

michaelb · Sep 4, 2003, 07:42 AM

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Is this kind of thing copyrightable ? I feel that it should be, as it's part of the Mac OS X APIs and look and feel.

Yes, it is, as things like Adobe's "docking palettes" have been the subject of numerous legal spats between Adobe and Macromedia.

Even if Apple has copyrighted theirs however, I don't think they'd bother to sue, especially something like Mozilla.

Think about it... Under XP, everyone uses IE anyway, and under Linux, it will just get the penguin folk accustomed to the OS X way of doing things, so when they eventually see the light they'll feel right at home in Mac OS X!

Don't sweat it. It's just an acknowledgment that Apple's getting it right.

MacGorilla · Sep 4, 2003, 07:44 AM

Reminds me more of the the Windows XP GUI than Mac OS X.

Link · Sep 4, 2003, 07:53 AM

I don't see anything about OS X in that. Perhaps a refresher? Mail,app?

Who cares? Personally, if the design helps promote use of open source browsers like Mozilla, I'm all for it!

Open source needs all the help it can get. Unfortunately IE is a monster and it might never be cleared out of the market. Currently it's becoming a far worse threat then Netscape 3 was back in the mid 90's

Gee4orce · Sep 4, 2003, 08:36 AM

I'm talking about the customise toolbar sheet that slides down just like in OS X, with the items you can drag to the toolbar just like in OS X, and the view select menu just like in OS X and the use small icons checkbox, just like in OS X.

I think the Adobe thing is different, because that's bespoke to their apps. This is a generic part of Mac OS X that nethertheless is unique to the platform. This is more like the original 'look and feel' argument with Windows.

pimephalis · Sep 4, 2003, 09:08 AM

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
I'm talking about the customise toolbar sheet that slides down just like in OS X, with the items you can drag to the toolbar just like in OS X, and the view select menu just like in OS X and the use small icons checkbox, just like in OS X.

You do, of course, realize that just about everything you describe here wrt toolbar customization was available in WordPerfect v. 6 and 7 for the PC, right? Other than the sheet sliding down, every item you mention here was offered with the same functionality and general appearance in 1997 by Corel. And others.

How many different ways are there to ask a user whether they would like to use small icons? This is a simple case of design convergence, if anything.

OptimusG4 · Sep 4, 2003, 09:19 AM

I think customizing a toolbar was first made to Mac using IE 5, way before we knew much about Mac OS X.

kcmac · Sep 4, 2003, 09:35 AM

If that looks in any way like Mac OSX, then I wonder what I have been using?....

KidRed · Sep 4, 2003, 10:15 AM

Originally posted by kcmac:
If that looks in any way like Mac OSX, then I wonder what I have been using?....

I do as well. Because that looks exactly like X's customize toolbar. just for those confused, we are discussing the 'look' not the 'icons'. The show text & icon pull down, the done buttons, etc are exactly as they are in X.

Gee4orce · Sep 4, 2003, 10:21 AM

Are you people blind ?

Yes you can customsise toolbars in just about every program that has a toolbar. What I'm referring to is the style of the dialog that represents this function.

If you've every used the standard Windows method of a drop-down 'Add or Remove buttons' menu, or the twin lists where you move items from one to the other, you'll know how much of an improvement Mac OS X's toolbars are.

booboo · Sep 4, 2003, 10:39 AM

It's the Windows way, copy the principle but make it fugly....

Moonray · Sep 4, 2003, 10:48 AM

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Are you people blind ?

Yes you can customsise toolbars in just about every program that has a toolbar. What I'm referring to is the style of the dialog that represents this function.

If you've every used the standard Windows method of a drop-down 'Add or Remove buttons' menu, or the twin lists where you move items from one to the other, you'll know how much of an improvement Mac OS X's toolbars are.

You forgot to mention that Apple stole the whole toolbar idea in first place from Netscape Navigator, so what?

-

JLL · Sep 4, 2003, 12:30 PM

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Is this kind of thing copyrightable ? I feel that it should be, as it's part of the Mac OS X APIs and look and feel.

The fun thing is that the sheet (and many other things in Firebird) is made by David Hyatt.

Tsilou B. · Sep 4, 2003, 12:44 PM

1.) Dave Hyatt is working for Apple (on Safari), AND he's one of the developers of Firebird. Thunderbird's sheet code is copied from Firebird. So I would guess that Hyatt said something like "Let's make the toolbars just like in Mac OS X as these are the best one's" and the others agreed.

2.) The Mozilla developers are not making these toolbars available for every Windows application, they are just for use in XUL applications like Firebird and Thunderbird.

3.) I don't consider it a bad thing when cross platform applications look and feel like Mac OS X. Mac OS X users will like them because they don't feel like badly ported Windows apps and Windows users will probably also like the look and feel and if someone tells them: "In Mac OS X (almost) all applications use these great toolbars" they will have a reason to switch. The only alternative would be to implement native toolbar controls on every platform and in that case the Mac version would probably be worse than the Windows version because there wouldn't be as many developers working on it (see OpenOffice).

Tsilou B. · Sep 4, 2003, 12:45 PM

Originally posted by Tsilou B.:
[B]1.) Dave Hyatt is working for Apple (on Safari), AND he's one of the developers of Firebird. Thunderbird's sheet code is copied from Firebird. So I would guess that Hyatt said something like "Let's make the toolbars just like in Mac OS X as these are the best one's" and the others agreed.

JLL was faster

mpmchugh · Sep 4, 2003, 02:47 PM

Gee4orce,

The sheet-like dialog with draggable items and default sets for customizing toolbars first appeared in Mac OS 9 in Internet Explorer 5.0.

It was pre-Mac OS X and, oddly enough, an innovation of the Microsoft Macintosh Business unit (many of whose programmers are former Apple & Claris programmers).

So, if Mozilla and co. are copying anyone it's MS, not Apple.

This so not a big deal. MS had Tabs before Apple did too.

Apple's implementation is usually better though.

-mpm